From Survival to Vocation: The Radical and Relevant Call of the Gospel in Times of Chaos and Peril. This item is unavailable.From Survival to Vocation: The Radical and Relevant Call of the Gospel in Times of Chaos and Peril

The powers of death are closer than we thought. Their perils appear in the forms of increased gun violence, racism, economic disparity, and global warming, to name but a few. Faced with these threats, Christians in this self-absorbed culture tend to use their faith as a kind of palliative comfort that protects them from the truths of what these powers are doing to us as a human community, and the sufferings they are inflicting on others, particularly the poor and the disenfranchised. Moreover, it is used to shield them from responding to the gospel's call to leave survival for vocation. Using Luther's theology of the cross and the instruction he imparts in his Large Catechism, this book asserts that in the face of the sufferings in which we are situated, the gospel news of Jesus's resurrection is a call to stand in its hope and power to resist these devastations and the dehumanization, exploitation, and domination they inflict. The hope of God's life-giving creativity in the face of the powers of death is given witness when Christians leave survival modes of existence to be in their baptismal vocation of loving neighbors as themselves.

Wayne Menking is a retired pastor of the ELCA and an ACPE Emeritus Certified Educator. He received his BA degree from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, his MDiv degree from Luther Theological Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, and his STD degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, CA. He received his clinical pastoral education at Hennepin County Medical Center, Lutheran Deaconess Hospital, and Metropolitan Medical Center in Minneapolis. He then received his Clinical Educator training at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. He has served congregations in North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Fort Worth, Texas. As an ACPE Certified Educator he has held positions at Children's Medical Center in Dallas and Texas Health Resources in Fort Worth. He has served on the extension faculty of Wartburg Theological Seminary as the director of the Lutheran Seminary of the Southwest (now Centro Teologico Luterano Multicultural), and presently serves on Wartburg's adjunct faculty as a clinical pastoral education instructor.

His doctoral dissertation advisor was Dr. James Nestingen, and his dissertation's title was "Luther's Small Catechism as a Resource for Spiritual formation in a Culture of Affluence." He has a life long interest in the application of Luther's theology of the cross and catechetical teachings for discovering Christian vocation in our culture's affluent and self absorbed life styles.

Wayne lives in Fort Worth with his spouse, Nancy. His retirement hobbies include photography, bread baking, cooking, gardening with Nancy, and writing.